Please help: I can't get the Xel Naga Temple to warp in

[phantommaelstrom]

I can't get the Xel Naga Temple to warp in. I did all the Ice iscript edits and I even copied the Nexus iscript and it still crashes when the structure completes its warping. What could possibly be the problem?

Can you guys please help me? I am trying to create a mod that allows Probes to create Special buildings...

[IskatuMesk]

The sprite is too large. Resize it down. That is what I remember. It's kind of unusual and I never discovered why, but the sprite's dimensions are too large yet for some reason it can work on preplaced.

'Course I could be wrong, because I discovered this in like 2002, but it's worth a shot. As a rule of thumb no sprite should be larger than 255x255.

[phantommaelstrom]

Thanks for the reply IskatuMesk...

I had seen a mod something like this years ago, I forgot the name of the mod, and I could no longer find it online. But, he did manage to make the Probe warp the Xel' Naga Temple without resizing. I also manage to copy it only that I use the Nexus sprite code to warp it in, but now, it seems to be not working.

Could it be because of the new patch v.1.16.1? And also, if memory serves me right, the crash took place because it cannot find a warping in (the semi-flashing) sprite, but when I put the Nexus sprite, the structure warps in with the Nexus flashing sprite before transforming into the Xel'Naga Temple.

Resizing was the last option I had in mind. Could there be another way like through an exe hack?

[IskatuMesk]

I doubt it has anything to do with versions. When I ran into this it was like, in the Stargraft days.

If I were to take a wild swing at a reason why, I suspect it's because of how hardcoded the warpin animation and everything related to it is. If the sprite's too big, it's liable to just explode. I know when I was still modding I discovered that anything 256x256, though it "worked", was extremely unstable. Resizing all those sprites to 255x255 fixed that instability. Meanwhile, whenever I tried to make the Xel`Naga temple buildable, it always crashed no matter what I did. Upon looking at the sprite, it has some very unusual dimensions. I suspect it'll either be the sprite itself being too large or the warpin animation not liking the size of the animation in a similar way.

If there's a way to exe hack around it I wouldn't know how, I'm not a programmer. Anything is possible through exe editing, but it depends how much you need to reverse engineer. If what I've learned about Diablo 2 is indication enough you're better off just trying to resize it than hoping someone knows how to reverse the game's sprite code.

You could always look at the build animations in units.dat to see if you missed anything but... yeah.

I have not touched bw since 2009 so everything I say should be taken with a boat of salt.

[phantommaelstrom]

The hack I saw years ago, back when Infoceptor was still online was working fine, and doesn't crash. If the patches doesn't have anything to do with it. Then I suspect it has something to do with the units.dat or with missing frames. I recall the hack I use back then has its own Xel'Naga Temple grp included in the cwad. Maybe that should tell us something.

Btw, just a while ago, I manage to get it to appear, but at the wireframe menu, it says that the structure is still warping. Hmm... I dunno what I did. I'm going to experiment some more and see what I can get...

[IskatuMesk]

Well, just out of memory, I remember thinking size was the issue. but I can't be certain for sure. If the "hack" had its own grp, it's possible they resized it themselves or did something else to it.

A protoss building can have a single frame. That's all you need unless you want to build animations into it. Warp-in is a little more complicated. The code for it probably looks like a tornado went through it, like all Blizzard touches. If the temple itself is not the issue, it may be how the temple is acting with the warp-in sprites/code. That said, there could always be some flaws in your iscript or .dat files. But speaking exclusively about the sprite, I'd say first try to shrink the size to 255x* whatever. If that works, you know your iscript/dat files are ok.

If your building is warping in but "not" warping in, that hints at something like a sigorder missing or somesuch garbage I think.

Like I said, first try resizing it. If it's still crashing, something else isn't working. You want to try to isolate the cause of the problem. Right now it could be anything. Isolating the causes lets you pinpoint the potential culprit. If you rule out the sprite size, you may be able to fix it, then re-instate the old sprite and see if it works. If the Nexus image overlay is active you'd do well to remove that, for example. Or the shadow. Or both.

[phantommaelstrom]

I've tried as you told me IskatuMesk and you're right! It is the big graphics that had been causing the error. However, it is still showing that same error I told you before. That part where it still says that building is still warping although it has already warped in.

The big graphics is unstable, which means the part where it actually loads was just 1/30th chance of happening.

EDIT:

255x255 still seems unstable...

But 220x220 seems stable. I still had to run a couple of retries to see if it really works...

UPDATE:

Darn, I give up. It won't warp in completely, although it doesn't crash, the process hangs out in limbo, and if you cancel the building, it explodes. This is pretty much hardcoded issue. I know it was working in the old StarCraft versions, but the new version seems to have patched it up.

[IskatuMesk]

What unit slot is this? What iscript did you base it on? Does it have any overlays/underlays? Did you change anything related to the warp animations? Anything in Firegraft?

[phantommaelstrom]

Xel'Naga Temple...

I base it on the Iscipt of all Protoss buildings. They seem to have similar animations with the only difference in Sprite Shadow. It is strange that they play when I use the normal sprites (the ones normally warped in by the Probes), but it does not allow special buildings. I did try replace the Xel'Naga Temple grp with the Nexus, which solve the crashing problem, but not the hanging animation.

I did not change anything in Firegraft except for the buttons wherein I created an additional Build Super Structure command. And then edit the unit requirement. That is all...

[IskatuMesk]

Hmm. I know I've encountered this problem before but so many years have passed and my brain is so muddled.

Try replacing a default protoss building with the Xel`Naga temple sprite in units.dat Say, the Gateway. If it works, it's the unit slot or something related to the iscript. If it crashes, it's the sprite.

Once we eliminate the sprite crashing/breaking stuff (the sprite shouldn't alone cause the building glitch), then we have to consider several possible reasons.

Units.dat - The unit AI, constructing sprite animations, advanced flags, everything needs to look like another protoss building.
Iscript - Axe all overlays/underlays (they can associate commands with the main unit and cause issues), make sure every single line is identicle to the gateway for example. Sigorders and headers and such are all very important so it has the proper animations.

If all of this fails, use another neutral building instead of the Xel`Naga temple but use your information for it. A lot of unit slots do indeed have hardcoded attributes to them, for example the lurker and map revealer.

[phantommaelstrom]

Thanks... I'll check it out and get back to you with the updates...

I may try exe hack via assembly, but I still don't have the references, for now I would like to focus on patch alone. I don't think Blizzard likes the idea to have their Starcraft.exe modified.

[Pr0nogo]

I don't think Blizzard likes the idea to have their Starcraft.exe modified.

I don't think they care enough to do anything at this point.

[phantommaelstrom]

UPDATE:

No good, it's still unstable. But someone from Staredit Network told me to check at the Warp Flash animations... there is a warp flash animation associated with every Protoss structure. This seems to be the one causing the crashes as I notice, the crash takes place when it is about to call a warp in structure that's envelop with a mask grp; creating the warping in effect.

I'm not sure but the guy who responded is using a very familiar name.

EDIT: Xel Naga Temple saved as Nexus crashes the game.

UPDATE: It seems you're right Iskatu, it is the big sprite that's causing the crash not the missing frames.

Here's the result of the trials.

Trial 1: Xel Naga Temple to replace Nexus sprite results to crash.

Trial 2: Xel Naga resize to 220x220 (resize includes the drawing itself) then use as Nexus - stable

Trial 3: Xel Naga using the resize 220x220 grp, now using Probe with Special buttons - stable.

Thanks a lot for helping me out Iskatu, I owe you a lot...